Baker stared as Bandra fell backward, a slash of red spouting across the pristine white. It took a few seconds before his fight-or-flight instinct cut through his shock—by which time other soldiers were reacting to the unexpected gunfire, unslinging their rifles.
He started to run, weighed down by his heavy clothing. The soldiers were some two hundred yards from him—but the plane was almost as distant in the other direction. Rifle fire crackled across the gap.
“David!” cried Rachel. Trulli watched, appalled, as little geysers of ice spat up around the running man, a ragged pattern of bullet impacts.
The pattern rapidly tightened.
Baker stumbled. For a moment Trulli thought he had just lost his footing—then a puff of crimson spray burst through his padded coat. And another, blood gushing out as he crashed onto the ice, flailing to a stop at the head of a smeared trail of gore.
Rachel screamed. “Take off!” yelled Trulli. “Go, go, go!” The soldiers were already switching their target, directing their weapons at the tilt-rotor. Larsson pushed the throttle to full power.
A shot hit the tilt-rotor’s side. Rachel shrieked again. “Get down!” Trulli told her, ducking in his seat. Another bullet struck somewhere behind him. His view of the soldiers was obscured by a whirlwind of ice crystals as the Bell finally fought free of the ground. Larsson immediately tilted the stick sideways to slide the aircraft away from the soldiers, turning as he gained height.
More gunfire, this time a rattling burst on automatic. Trulli looked back. One of the hovercraft was slithering across the ice on a rooster tail of snow and ice. Two Covenant soldiers were aboard, one driving, the other in the front seat with a rifle, flames spitting from its muzzle as he fired again—
More bullets hit home, ripping into the aluminum fuselage and penetrating the cabin. Larsson yelped as one struck the back of his seat—but didn’t pierce the metal, the flattened round clanging to the floor. Other shots thunked around them; then the firing stopped as the aircraft transitioned to flight mode and sped out of range.
“Are we damaged?” Trulli asked. “Can we still fly?”
Larsson hurriedly checked the instruments. “I think so. But who were they? What the hell is going on?”
“Tell you in a minute.” Trulli turned his attention back to the walkie-talkie. “First, I’ve got to get this radio working!”
Zamal watched the tilt-rotor retreat into the distance. “They’re getting away!” he yelled.
“It doesn’t matter,” Callum told him, unconcerned. He looked at the hole in the ice. “We’ve still got Wilde and Chase trapped. And Blackwood.”
“I want Sophia alive,” Ribbsley said firmly. “If you want my help, that’s the deal.”
Vogler smiled sardonically. “Professor Ribbsley, do you know how far we are from the nearest ice station?”
Ribbsley looked puzzled. “No?”
“About a hundred and twenty miles,” said Hammerstein, lighting a cigar.
“Quite a walk,” Vogler continued. “And since we only have enough seats in the paracrafts to take all of us back there”—he gestured at one of the four-seater vehicles—“if we decided to bring Ms. Blackwood with us, one person would have to give up his place and make that walk. And, I assure you, that person will not be any of my men.”
“Nor mine,” said Hammerstein.
Zamal grinned. “Or mine.”
“And I doubt Mr. Callum will volunteer, either. So, Professor, you may want to reconsider your position.” Vogler gazed into the distance. “It really is quite a walk.”
Ribbsley turned away with an irritable, defeated growl. Vogler regarded him with brief amusement before calling to one of the soldiers. “Situation report!”
“The paracrafts are all ready, sir,” the man replied.
“And the ice burners?”
The soldier indicated a pair of heavy objects the size and shape of oil drums, which were being lifted upright alongside two of the paracrafts. “Ready to be moved into position.”
“Then let us begin.” Vogler faced the other Covenant leaders. “Hammerstein, take your squad down the shaft there,” he said, nodding at the winch. “Zamal, get your men to set up the first ice burner over the center of the lake and proceed from there. My team will take the second to the southern end. Mr. Callum, Professor Ribbsley, come with me.” He took his rifle from his shoulder, pulling back the charging handle to load the first round. “Dr. Wilde’s search is over.”
The second cylinder was on the spindle. “All right,” said Nina, “let’s see what this one has to say.”
“What was it called again?” asked Chase.
“‘The Path from …’ whatever that name is,” Sophia said, pointing at the unknown word on the inscription, then moving her finger to the starting point of the map. “Presumably this place in Africa.”
Nina turned the wheel. An ancient voice echoed from the speaker cone, reciting the cylinder’s title. “We’ll take a look after we’ve played—” She stopped as she heard what it said.
Chase and Sophia were equally dumbfounded. Though the language was strange, one word stood out clearly from the others. A name.
A name they all knew.
Nina stopped the wheel. Chase jabbed a finger at the cone. “Did that just say what I think it said?”
“Play it again!” Sophia ordered, but Nina didn’t need any prompting, already moving the needle back to its starting position. She spun the wheel again.
Again the unfamiliar words emerged from the speaker … followed by one they couldn’t mistake.
Eden.
“‘The Path from Eden’?” Chase almost shouted. “Are you telling me these buggers came from the Garden of fucking Eden?”
“It can’t be,” Sophia protested, even as Nina reset the needle once more. “The Garden of Eden is pure myth!”
“So was Atlantis,” Nina reminded her as the ancient recording played again.
Eden. The same word. Unmistakable. Undeniable.
“That’s the Covenant’s secret,” said Nina, stunned. “The Covenant of Genesis … they took their name from the agreement, the covenant, between the three religions to protect Genesis, to protect Eden, and make sure nobody ever finds it.”
“Why?” Chase asked, mystified. “If they say, ‘Hey, look, we found the actual, factual Garden of Eden!’ wouldn’t that prove they were right all along?”
“Not if scientific analysis confirmed that what was written in Genesis is wrong. The story told in Genesis is the foundation stone of all three religions—kick it out, and they’re all weakened. They can’t allow that to happen.”
Sophia surveyed the map. “So do they know where Eden is?”
“They can’t; otherwise they would have dealt with it already.” She raised her hands to take in the room and its contents. “But they don’t have any of this. We do, and the Covenant doesn’t know where we are—so we can find Eden first!”
Chase was about to say something when his walkie-talkie squawked. “Matt? That you?” The only response was a stuttering electronic screech. “Walls must be too thick for the signal to get through,” he said, ducking back through the passageway. “I’ll try it out here.”
He emerged in the ice-blocked hallway, where the red flare was still fizzing away. Trulli’s voice became clearer, though it was still heavily distorted. “Nina! Eddie! If you can hear me, for Christ’s sake, answer!”
“I’m here, Matt,” said Chase. “What’s up?”
“Eddie! Oh, thank God! Listen, they’re here, the Covenant! They killed Davo and Dr. Bandra!”
Chase was silent for a moment. “Oh, arse,” he finally said.
“Eddie! Did you hear me?”
“Yeah, I heard you. Where are you?”
“We’re in the plane. Listen, you’ve got to get out of there!”
“No shit, Sherlock,” muttered Chase as the women scrabbled through the passage, Nina clutching the cylinder containing the song. “Nina, you know how you just
said that the Covenant doesn’t know where we are?”
“Yeah?”
“Guess what?”
Nina’s face fell. “You gotta be kidding me!”
“Matt,” he said into the radio, “we need to find another way back to the winch.” He paused. “They’re at the winch, aren’t they?”
“Yeah” came the crackling reply.
“Buggeration and fuckery!” Another moment of thought. “Okay, then the only other way out’s through the drainage shaft—if it hasn’t frozen up. If we get out, I’ll radio you so you can pick us up. But if you don’t hear anything from us in …” He looked at his watch. “In the next hour, then get the fuck out of here, because I don’t think we’ll be coming.”
“We’ll land and wait for you,” Trulli assured him. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Chase lowered the radio. “Okay, we need another way back down to the ground—but first things first,” he said as an idea struck him, and he crouched and hurried back through the passage.
“What are you doing?” Nina asked, pocketing the cylinder and following him.
“Give me your camera. Quick.” She extracted it from its pouch and handed it to him. He took several pictures of the African section of the map.
Sophia entered. “What is it?”
“We’re the only people who’ve seen this, right?” he said, closing the camera’s cover and stuffing it into one of his inside pockets, then pulling the pickax from his belt.
“Yeah?” said Nina.
“So nobody else ever will.” He raised the ax—and smashed it repeatedly against the wall, obliterating the markings.
“Eddie!” Nina cried, horrified. “What are you doing?” She tried to pull the ax from his hand.
“No,” Sophia said, “he’s right. We can’t let the Covenant find this.”
Chase kept bashing at the wall until the African end of the map was nothing more than shattered fragments on the floor, then ground them to powder beneath his boot. “Don’t think they’ll get much from that.” He went back to the passageway. “Okay, now we need to find another way to the shaft—and we’ve got fifty-eight minutes to do it!”
TWENTY-FIVE
Even through his sunglasses, Vogler had to squint to counter the glare of sunlight on snow as he looked across the ice field. In the distance he picked out Hammerstein and his team descending the winch line; two hundred yards closer, Zamal’s men were moving one of the black drums into position.
His own soldiers had done the same with the second. “The ice burner is ready, sir,” a man informed him.
“Then start it. Everyone, move back.”
The rest of the team, plus Ribbsley and Callum, retreated as the soldier inserted a long glass tube containing an amber liquid into an opening on the drum’s top. Once it was in place, he pushed a button and quickly moved away. A faint crack came from within the heavy drum as a small explosive charge shattered the glass.
“Is that it?” Ribbsley asked, unimpressed. “With something called an ice burner, I was expecting jets of flame.”
“Just wait,” Vogler told him. Seconds passed … then the drum shifted, settling deeper into the surface layer of snow. Water pooled around its base.
Then bubbled, and boiled.
Steam swirled from the ground as the drum sank into the ice. Hot water gushed from the hole, displaced by the ice burner’s weight, and the hiss of escaping steam became a roar as the metal began to glow red-hot. Across the plain, a spewing plume of vapor shot up as Zamal’s ice burner disappeared into the frozen surface.
“Exothermic reaction,” said Vogler to the now somewhat more impressed Ribbsley. “Two chemicals that produce an enormous amount of heat when mixed. Some sort of thermate derivative—I don’t know what, chemistry is not my field, but I’ve been told the reaction will last long enough to melt through up to one hundred and fifty feet of ice.” The drum dropped below the surface, steam and spray spitting out of the hole.
“How long will it take?” Ribbsley asked.
“Five minutes, perhaps less. As soon as it breaks through, we will secure ropes and climb down. Will you be able to manage?”
The professor gave him a scathing look. “If I can manage a parachute drop, I can handle a rope climb.”
“Good. Then get ready.”
Nina, Chase, and Sophia split up, hurriedly searching the unexplored areas of the library for other exits. Nina moved through the western side of the huge room, before long making a promising discovery. “Eddie!” she called. “I found another way out!”
Sophia was the first to arrive. “There’s a doorway,” Nina told her. “It’s frozen up, but I can see light on the other side.” The azure glow of ice-filtered daylight was visible around the edges of the wood-and-metal door.
Chase reached them. “What’ve we got?”
“A door,” Sophia said. “Of the closed variety, inevitably.”
“I don’t think it’s frozen solid like that gate,” said Nina, “but I can’t get it open.” She tugged at the ice-caked handle. The door rattled but didn’t move.
“Let’s have a go,” Chase said. He gripped the handle with both hands, pulling backward as hard as he could. Ice cracked on the other side of the door. He grunted, then stepped back before charging and slamming into it with his shoulder. There was a crunch, and as Chase reeled back the door swung open after him. “Piece of piss.”
Nina hugged him. “Nice job.”
“Yes, whenever you need nothing more than brute force, you can always rely on Eddie,” said Sophia.
Chase leered at her. “Hey, you used to like some brute force. Ow,” he added as Nina hit him on his bruised shoulder. “What was that for?” Her glare gave him the answer. “Oh, right.”
“Enjoyable as it is to reminisce about our sex life,” Sophia sighed as she went to the opening, “I really think we should move on.”
“Yes, we should,” Nina growled, giving Chase another reprimanding look as she followed.
They emerged on a slope leading down to the cliffs. Below, they saw the frozen city spread out before them—and, uncomfortably close above, the icy ceiling. As the lake had drained, millions of tiny icicles had formed where water had dripped from the underside, giving the trio the unpleasant feeling of a vast field of spikes hanging just over their heads. Not far up the slope, the ice arced downward to meet the ground, entombing the end of the library—and the mysterious “source of life” within.
Chase went to the cliff edge and looked down. “Shit. It’s too steep.” Part of the rock face had been dug away to accommodate the towering temple, the drop almost vertical.
“What about farther along?” Sophia asked. “If we can get to the side of the valley …”
He peered along the cliff top. “Still a tough climb, but there might be a way down. Nina, you up for it?” She didn’t answer. “Nina?”
Her attention had been caught by a sound, but she couldn’t work out its origin. It seemed to be all around them, a low rumble. “You hear that?” she asked. “Where’s it coming from?”
“More to the point,” said Sophia, “what is it?”
“Nothing good,” Chase guessed. He turned to hunt for the cause—before something made him look up. “Oh, fuck.”
Nina followed his gaze. There was something in the ice almost directly above them, silhouetted against the blue glow from the surface. As she watched, she realized it was moving.
Descending through the ice. Fast.
The rumbling grew louder, a hiss rising behind it. Icicles fell around them like a rain of glass daggers. “Get back inside!” Chase yelled. They ran for the door.
“What the hell is it?” Nina gasped. The cavern ceiling fractured explosively, the rumble becoming a roar—
A hole blew open, a huge cloud of steam shrieking out into the frigid air as thousands of gallons of boiling water cascaded down. The dark mass of the ice burner hit the ground with a massive thud. The drum rolled down the slope, flying over the edge of
the cliff amid a scalding waterfall to hit the ground outside the temple with a bang that echoed through the entire cavern.
No sooner had that noise faded than another reached them, a second black drum falling from the roof above the domed houses in another vast column of steam and melted ice.
Chase pushed Nina and Sophia through the door as the steam cloud whooshed past them, the sudden clammy heat a shock after the constant cold. “Last thing I expected down here was a sauna,” he wheezed as he slammed the door. He waited for the steam to disperse, then opened the door slightly to look out. A mist hung over the slope outside, but it was clear enough for him to see a rope drop through the new shaft overhead. He hurriedly closed the door again. “Guess who else wants a steam?”
“The Covenant?” Nina asked, already knowing the answer. “Oh, man! That means somebody’s now tried to kill me on every single continent on earth!”
“Shall I call the Guinness Book of Records?” Sophia sneered.
“We’ll have to try climbing down that statue,” said Chase. “Come on—it’ll take ’em a minute to get down here and get their bearings.”
“But there are more of them in the city,” Sophia pointed out.
“Let’s get out of the fucking Fortress of Solitude here first, then worry about them,” he said. Less than fifty minutes left, and they were no nearer to finding a way down than before. They ran from the library, emerging at the top of the shaft behind the temple. “Sorry, love,” he told Nina, “but we’re going to have to put that window through.”
She looked very unhappy. “Oh God, it’s absolutely priceless … but do it. I just won’t watch.”
Taking out the pickax, Chase made his way as quickly as he dared around the ledge to the window. He glanced back. Nina winced and looked away. Taking that as a cue, he whacked the ax against the ancient window. The stained glass was already brittle from age and cold and shattered easily; the gold leading was tougher, needing several blows before he was able to bend the soft metal aside.